How Can I Initialize Structs in Go Without Traditional Constructors?

Constructors in Go: Alternatives to Ensure Sensible Default Values

Traditionally, constructors are used to initialize objects in object-oriented programming languages. However, in Go, which takes a different approach to object-oriented design, there are no constructors in the conventional sense.

To address the need for setting sensible default values for structs, Go offers several alternatives. One option is the init method, which runs at the package level. However, this approach is not suitable for initializing individual structs.

A more common practice is to create a NewThing function that takes necessary parameters and returns a pointer to an initialized struct. This function allows for setting specific values while assigning default values to other fields. For example:

type Thing struct {
    Name  string
    Num   int
}

func NewThing(name string) *Thing {
    p := new(Thing)
    p.Name = name
    p.Num = 33 // Default value
    return p
}

A condensed version of this function would be:

func NewThing(name string) *Thing {
    return &Thing{name, 33}
}

If returning a pointer is undesirable, another option is to create a makeThing function that directly returns a value:

func makeThing(name string) Thing {
    return Thing{name, 33}
}

This approach is suitable for structs that are relatively simple and do not require pointers. It is worth noting that the new keyword allocates memory in Go, so it is important to consider memory management practices when working with pointers.

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